Destroy
by a mountain of gideon's scones
Summary: It takes Bellatrix twenty years to break Andromeda and Ted—and when she does, she does it in an instant. /TedAndromeda for Louise.


This fic is for Louise (downstage) for her birthday yesterday; I'm sorry it's late, bb!

TedAndromeda.

I don't own the characters, nor the line from the Deathly Hallows towards the end of this fic.

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"No." Bellatrix Black is fierce as she talks to her younger sister, blocking Andromeda's attempts to leave the room. "No. I refuse to allow it. You're not—"

"You don't get to say who I marry!" Andromeda replies angrily, her irritation causing sparks to fly out of the end of her wand; they fly out in all directions and ignite one of the tapestries on the wall.

Bellatrix puts out the fire with one lazy wave of her wand, her eyes focused on her sister at all times. "Given that our parents aren't here, I think you'll find I _do_," she tells her sister, a wicked smile on her lips. "And I can tell you that Evan Rosier is a potential match that mother had suggested before she left. I quite agree that our cousin is a good husband for you—far better than that scum, at least." Her lip curls as she refers to Ted, and Andromeda barely resists aiming her wand at her sister. Whilst they don't get along particularly well, she wouldn't want to hurt her—even if she _is_ trying to destroy her relationship.

"I can marry Ted, and I _will_," she says, her voice showing her determination. "You can't stop me, Bella; I'm leaving this house and I'm moving in with Ted. You don't understand him; you think that just because he's a Gryffindor, we need to be enemies, but we _don't_. Interhouse relationships are important, and I…I love him."

Bellatrix snarls under her breath, marching forwards to shake her sister by the shoulders; she isn't gentle as she does so, and Andromeda finds herself going dizzy after a few moments. "You don't understand, do you?" Bellatrix hisses into her sister's ear. "We aren't going to accept you; if you marry this scum, you leave the Black family for good—we will never speak to you again! I will break this resolve you have, I will, or—"

"Get off me," Andromeda says, and the bitterness of her tone surprises Bella enough to comply. "Have you considered that I don't _want_ to be part of this family any longer? I don't _like_ being considered Dark, being the ones that everyone fears; I want to be integrated, like Ted; he makes me feel happy, feel as though I'm accepted. All _you_ care about is this new legion of Dark wizards and being accepted into it…and I don't want that."

Bellatrix is stunned into silence, and so Andromeda continues, pushing her sister out of the way of the door.

"Try to keep me here and you'll fail," Andromeda says as she opens the door, her eyes flashing with anger—and also slight sadness: she _will_ miss her family, for all their faults, but not as much as she'd miss Ted. "If you never want to see me again, that's fine. Just know that I'll be happy either way."

As she walks down the hallway from the drawing room in which she was in with her sister, Bellatrix yells, "I _will_ destroy this relationship! It may take a year, it may take fifty, but I _will_ break you and Ted. You will not be eternally happy, I assure you!"

Andromeda bursts out of the house as quickly as possible, not replying to Bellatrix's words, because she's not sure if she could control the tears if she _had_ stayed for another minute—and crying is one thing that she swore she wouldn't do today.

(At least with her family; when she gets to her new home with Ted, she's sure that the tears will spill down her cheeks at the loss of her family.)

_~x~_

Even though she doesn't _really _believe that Bella will be able to do anything to her relationship, Andromeda can't help but be cautious with Ted as Voldemort rises from the shrouds of darkness—and Bellatrix goes with him. The news of her family's association with Voldemort and the Death Eaters startles Andromeda, and as more and more rumours begin to circulate, she's glad that her surname is now Tonks.

"Don't be scared, we're fine, we'll always be fine," Ted whispers into her ear when she tells him what her sister said all those years ago—now they've been married for five years and have a child, but she still fears that Bellatrix will make good on her threats to destroy her relationship—and yet Andromeda can't believe it.

"But…but she's a _Death Eater_!" Andromeda replies, agony ripping through her voice as she turns her head to look at their daughter in her crib. "And…she said that she would do it, and would wait no matter _how_ long. I can't ignore her threat, especially with what she is."

Ted turns her head back to look at him, and the look in his eyes of absolute determination almost (_almost_) persuading her to believe that they can always be safe from Bellatrix and her fellows. "I will protect my family, forever and always, and I will _not_ be defeated by our world's terrorists," he tells his wife, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. "Do not fear. I swear, Andromeda, you won't lose me."

**.**

The next week, Bellatrix is arrested as a Death Eater, and locked away in Azkaban.

Andromeda dares to let herself hope.

_~x~_

Years pass, and with Voldemort gone (_dead?)_ Andromeda feels as though Bella was wrong, that her relationship _is_ out of her family's grasp. And so family life continues: Nymphadora goes to Hogwarts, Ted goes to work and she returns to her job, now that her daughter's preparation for Hogwarts has ended—life is normal, they are free, and there's no longer the constant fear in their lives.

Things advance further than this: her daughter becomes an Auror, Ted retires from international work in banking and settles in Gringotts, and Andromeda begins to plan for her early retirement; she and Ted want to see the world, to go travelling and learn about other cultures.

Every now and then, Andromeda is reminded of the words of her older sister in their childhood home, the last time she was there, and she can't help but smile at the fact that she's defied what her sister said. Voldemort is gone, Bellatrix is forevermore locked away, and Andromeda and Ted are _happy_.

(It's a shame that Voldemort has to come back and destroy this setting of picture-perfect happiness.)

_~x~_

Dumbledore drafts them into the Order, again, though they're the bit-parts that will only be used for the final stages of the protection of Harry Potter; neither Andromeda nor Ted want to be actively involved in the fighting—or, rather, not yet, at least—and so they're quite content to be on the fringes of the operation.

When Bellatrix is released, Andromeda can't help but think once again that her sister was right, that her reach _can_ destroy her relationship, because she's free from Azkaban again—and if someone can break out of the wizarding prison, then they're someone to be reckoned with.

Yet, like before, Ted consoles her, whispering in her ear that they're going to be fine, that they're not _that_ old and that they aren't going to be destroyed, no chance at all; they're the burning couple who defied the odds to be together, a Gryffindor and a Slytherin, a pureblood and a Muggleborn, and the escape of an insane Death Eater isn't going to destroy them. So Andromeda manages to hide her fear as she sits by the fireplace with her love, almost three decades of marriage under their belt already, and focuses on the fact that they've not been defeated yet…

(She tries to forget that there's a storm coming, that there's a second wizarding war on the horizon, and maybe they won't get through that.)

_~x~_

He has to go on the run.

Dumbledore's dead, Voldemort has the Ministry, and it becomes apparent that the first thing being dealt with is the case of Muggleborns.

"I'll be back," Ted whispers into Andromeda's ear as he pulls her close to him in their final moments together. "He won't get rid of me that easily; you know me, I don't stand for terrorists."

She has to bite back a smile through the tears as his lips press against her forehead, hands interlocked, as she says, "I love you, Ted. Be careful—you know what they're like. You don't want to get on their bad side."

The sun's setting, casting their garden varying shades of purple and orange and red, creating a tranquil, _beautiful_ location for their final kiss.

"I'm always careful," he says with a smile as he pulls away from his wife, bags on his back, wand in his hand. "Maybe you ought to be the one watching out for the Death Eaters."

With that, he Disapparates, and Andromeda falls to the ground, tears streaming down her face. In her heart, she knows that it's the last time she'll see him alive…she just doesn't want to admit it.

(Bellatrix always wins, she knows. She's just resisted allowing this information to rise from her subconscious for the last thirty or so years.)

_~x~_

She listens to the secret radio station whenever it comes on; she's never missed a broadcast, because she knows that if Ted is killed, this is the only way she'll find out. If he's captured, he'll be tortured and murdered, and the Ministry won't even register his existence—they think he shouldn't exist, after all—and Andromeda's heart is in her mouth every time that the crackle from the station tells her that the Order is broadcasting.

It takes months, but finally, she hears news of her husband…and perhaps that's better than not knowing.

"_It is with great regret that we inform our listeners of the murders of Ted Tonks and Dirk Cresswell._"

These nineteen words destroy Andromeda.

As she sits staring into space, ignoring the sound of the rest of the broadcast—it's just a series of noises to her; she's in shock—she knows that she was always expecting this: Bellatrix had told her that she would destroy her relationship, no matter how long it took, and that's right.

She has done it, and Andromeda wonders whether or not she ever _truly_ believed that she and Ted had a chance of escaping the curse of Bellatrix Black.

(Andromeda will fight on, in Ted's name. It's for him that she's going to help defeat Voldemort; it's the only way that she can commemorate her husband.)

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